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No Officers Charged Directly With Breonna Taylor's Death. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 23, 2020 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: They feel that this is outrageous, this -- the indictment handed down, which has nothing to do with Breonna Taylor's death, has to do with the endangerment of three people in an apartment next door to hers.

Don Lemon, thank you so much.

Our special coverage will continue right now with Kate Bolduan.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Hey there, everybody. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.

We are going to continue following this breaking news in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a grand jury's decision announced just moments ago saying that only one of the three officers involved in the shooting is being charged, former Detective Brett Hankison.

He's indicted on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment, but no officers, none of them are charged directly with and in the killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT who was shot six times in her apartment in the middle of the night on March 13.

Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly not indicted, Detective Myles Cosgrove also not indicted.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, he defended this decision just a little bit ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL CAMERON (R), KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Breonna Taylor's death has become a part of a national story and conversation.

We must also remember the facts and the collection of evidence in this case are different than cases elsewhere in the country. Each is unique and cannot be compared.

There will be celebrities, influencers, and activists who, having never lived in Kentucky, will try to tell us how to feel, suggesting they understand the facts of this case and that they know our community and the commonwealth better than we do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Taylor's family attorney, Ben Crump, Benjamin Crump, he tweeted this just a short time ago in reaction, really the first reaction from the family and the representation.

"Jefferson County grand jury indicts former Officer Brett Hankison with three counts of wanton endangerment and first-degree for bullets that went into other apartments, but nothing for the murder of Breonna Taylor." Benjamin Crump says: "This is outrageous and offensive."

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, he is on the streets of Louisville, where we know that protesters have been gathering. He's with them.

But, first, let's get over to CNN's Jason Carroll, who was at the attorney general's news conference, where we learned a lot more detail.

Jason, lay out for us what we learned from the attorney general about the case that was presented to the grand jury and what the attorney general knows.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, a couple of things first, because there's obviously a lot to unpack here, and I think you hit the nail right on the head, because basically what we're talking about is all three of these officers, none of these officers have basically been charged directly with Breonna Taylor's death.

I mean, that's the headline. That is the bottom line here, because if you look at what happened, you look at what has been said, and how the attorney general laid out his case, let's talk about first Myles Cosgrove and Jonathan Mattingly.

Those are two of the three officers that responded on that night on March 13. According to what the attorney general is telling us, he says that the evidence showed that these two officers knocked and announced themselves, and he says that was corroborated by an independent witness.

So he says these two officers knocked, identified themselves. He says, when the officers walked inside, he said Jonathan Mattingly first walked in when they were serving that no-knock warrant, search warrant. He says that, at that point, he saw male and a female. The male opened fire. That would be Breonna Taylor's boyfriend.

He opened fired thinking that it was an intruder, it was someone else, because, remember, he says that he never heard anyone identify themselves as police officers on that fateful night.

And so the grand jurors decided that those two officers were justified in returning fire and shooting.

Now, as for the other officer, and this is the one that basically I think a lot of folks were thinking would be charged with something more serious, the thought was that this officer, Hankison, would be charged with something more serious. But he was basically charged with wanton endangerment in the first-degree.

And that was in relation to shooting at neighboring apartments, not inside -- actually inside Breonna Taylor's apartment. And so you can imagine the outrage on behalf of Breonna Taylor's attorneys, Breonna Taylor's family, who say that all three of these officers should have faced criminal charges, that all three of these officers were reckless on that night.

But, according to the attorney general, that is not the evidence that they had -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Jason, thank you so much for laying that out. I really appreciate it.

There's so much more to get to right now, as you can see in the pictures on your screen right there. That's in Louisville, Kentucky.

Let's get to Shimon Prokupecz. He's been speaking to people who were gathering even before this announcement, and they're now taking to the streets.

[15:05:03]

Shimon, what are you hearing from folks?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

So we were initially inside the Jefferson Square Park, where many of the protesters have been gathering for weeks, people waiting for word on this investigation.

And they were watching it live. And they understood immediately what was happening. They understood that nobody would be held responsible for the death of Breonna Taylor, the police, the attorney general, as we heard a short time ago, talking about how, essentially, the officers were justified in firing their weapons, one of those weapons eventually killing Breonna Taylor.

And so many of the people here are pretty upset. And I spoke to one woman. She was crying. And she said, how many more times does this have to happen? People feel that this was unfair. People feel that they were perhaps taking down a road. There were some expectations.

The family wanted at least manslaughter charges. And some people didn't expect that. They were happy to hear that a grand jury was investigating this. But they understood immediately. When that decision was read in court, they knew almost immediately what was happening.

And, as you can see, there's probably a couple of hundred here. We're now in an area called Germantown in Louisville. We were downtown. So we're about four or five miles now. We have been marching since probably around 1:30, after the decision came from the grand jury.

And we're hearing a lot of chants about Breonna Taylor and justice. And I want to tell you a couple of things just to give you some quick

color here. Many of the neighbors and the people who live in this community and all over Louisville have been very supportive of the protests. There's a lot of them coming out of their homes, cheering them on, supporting them.

The police -- now, the police have been standing back. They have been in the distance behind the group that has been marching. And it's been small pockets of confrontation. But, for the most part, the police have been letting them march through the streets.

The big concern here is for tonight. And as we have seen in these types of demonstrations, in the evening hours is when things get -- take a change. And the city is bracing for that. There's a curfew. There's the National Guard.

We walked here. And, actually, as we were walking here, we already see the National Guard is here. We saw a couple of vehicles on one of the streets here ready, the police here. There are federal law enforcement here as well. Curfew takes effect at 9:00. And all of downtown, all of downtown Louisville is basically shut

down. People were told to go home. Stores have remained closed. And so we will see. We don't know where we're marching here. But I think this is going to be the scene here pretty much through the rest of the day and night, where we're going to see protests and people come out and voice their unhappiness, their anger.

It's really anger, people in tears over what happened here today, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Shimon, thank you so much, and great work walking, walking and giving us a picture of it. Looking forward to hearing what folks that are protesting and marching, what they're saying and feeling and expressing in this moment.

Again, as you said, it's -- a big question is what happens tonight. Hopefully, it continues just as you're seeing right there, peacefully protesting, speaking out, expressing their anger, as they are.

Shimon, great. Thank you to you and your crew.

All right, joining me right now is Cedric Alexander. He was a law enforcement officer for some 40 years, also the former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and also civil rights attorney Charles Coleman.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for jumping on with me.

Cedric, what's your reaction to what we saw, what we have learned from the attorney general and the grand jury?

CEDRIC ALEXANDER, FORMER PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF BLACK LAW ENFORCEMENT EXECUTIVES: Well, I think the reactions are very evident in terms of what you're seeing that is taking place there on the streets of Louisville at this very moment. You have a lot of people who are very angry, very sad that the outcome

is not what they certainly had hoped for. But the issue here for me, the bigger issue here, quite frankly, Brianna (sic), is that there has been a loss of trust in law enforcement.

And, as you can see, people are feeling that way about it at the federal level, and at the state level in this case, and certainly at the local level as well.

So, it becomes an issue around legitimacy. Who can people really trust if they feel that their issues are not being addressed? Look, the law is the law. The process is what the process is. I'm unable to question that.

But, for me, as a former lawman, it does bring to light to this in this particular incident is that policing across this country is going to have to go back and look at the way that we do business, the way that we do business in terms of the way that we train and even in the way that we do businesses as to how we go and acquire search warrants, whether they are no-knock or not, because I think some question I would like answered, even though those officers report that they were fired upon first, the question becomes also, did they have intelligence information that may have suggested heard that there could have been children inside that house?

[15:10:03]

And if it were, how were you going to respond if you were fired upon? Do you fire back immediately? So, I wasn't there. None of us was there. They acquired the information and evidence that has been reported thus far. People are -- have a lot of question -- a lot of questions still need to be answered.

But, for me, as a lawman, former lawman, I think it's important. We got to go back and we got to look at procedures, we got to look at our policies, we got to look at how these warrants are being issued, and what preparation needs to be taken before one of these warrants are ever executed, because it certainly is going to require further intel, information than maybe what we have acquired before.

BOLDUAN: And I actually want to delve into this much deeper in a second, because the attorney general made very clear that aspect you're talking about, Cedric, was not part of his investigation at all.

They were not charged with looking into the police work that led up to the warrant, to obtaining the warrant, or to the briefing that led to these detectives, these officers heading into that apartment at all.

Charles, your reaction?

CHARLES COLEMAN JR., CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: You know, I think that a lot of what Cedric said is very important. But I also think that it's even more important to put this within context, Kate.

What we are having a problem with is the lack of transparency that has been apparent throughout this entire situation and that has led to increased unrest on behalf of the community and throughout the country. We have had a lack of transparency from the prosecutor's office with regard to what was going on and why it was taking so long.

We have had a lack of transparency from Thomas Wine, even before Daniel Cameron became the center of this conversation, where Thomas Wine attempted to make a plea deal with Breonna Taylor's ex-boyfriend regarding implicating her in his drug activities back in July.

And now that we have had this indictment come down, we have a lack of transparency regarding what actually took place in the grand jury. And it only underscores so much of what is wrong with our criminal justice system in America right now.

So what we know, when we talk in terms of what we listened to and what we heard from Daniel Cameron when he talked about this indictment, was that he was very careful with respect to the language that he used, and the language that he did not use.

He did not say that he presented homicide statutes to the grand jury for their consideration. What he said was, we walked the grand jury through all the homicide statutes.

Speaking as a former prosecutor, I can tell you very clearly that, had he presented homicide statues to the grand jury, that's what he would have said. He did not present homicide statutes to the grand jury. And, in large part, I see this as an attempt to sort of split the baby and try to give law enforcement as much as they could in terms of hanging their hat, and give the community some semblance of something to hang their hat on as well at the same time.

Well, as the old adage goes, you cannot be all things to all people at the same time. And we see this very clearly here. Daniel Cameron talked greatly about the issue of justice and the notion of justice. And I heard him talk on and on and on about what justice meant, and what justice dictated in this case.

Well, if you're asking me for my initial thoughts, one of my initial thoughts is, is that this has nothing to do with justice, and this does not have a semblance of justice attached to it.

BOLDUAN: Well, and, Charles, to that point I do -- is that -- and I believe I understand where you're headed with this.

Is this accountability? Is this accountability for what happened? No charges directly related to Breonna Taylor's death. They say -- the attorney general said what he found was that the officers were justified in their return of fire and their use of deadly force because they were fired upon.

Breonna Taylor was innocent. She wasn't holding a gun. She was shot six times.

COLEMAN: That's exactly what I'm talking about, Kate.

This is a situation where ultimately what you are telling us, what you are telling the public and what you want us to accept and go home with and digest and unpack is that there was a woman who was asleep in her bed who is now dead and no longer with us. There was a law enforcement officer's bullet who was responsible for

causing that death, but yet and still no member of law enforcement is responsible criminally for what we're talking about.

Now, speaking as an attorney, speaking as a former prosecutor, I understand they were executing a valid search warrant. I understand that they were fired upon. And so the notion that some of these officers may not have been unjustified in the use of force is not beyond me, from a legal perspective.

But, again, looking at the bottom line, what you want me to accept and what you want our community to accept is that no one is responsible for this death? And that is absurd. That is why it flies in the face of reason. And that is why there should be outrage across the country about the fact that we do not have at least one homicide charge on this indictment, even if it's for reckless.

BOLDUAN: Let me read once again, as this is the first reaction, really, that we have Cedric from the family's legal team, from Benjamin Crump.

[15:15:03]

He tweeted out the following. I'll read it again for everyone.

He wrote: "Jefferson County grand jury indicts former officer Brett Hankison with three counts of wanton endangerment and first-degree for bullets that went into other apartments, but nothing for the murder of Breonna Taylor."

Benjamin Crump saying: "This is outrageous and offensive."

I -- you have written really eloquently, Cedric, on how -- you talk about what happened to Breonna Taylor as -- describe it as a failure in policing. And I'm just kind of sitting here looking at what -- I'm seeing people peacefully protesting in the streets. I'm seeing the outrage and the anger, and I hear the pain in Benjamin Crump 's tweet here and anger in his tweet.

Where do we go from here?

ALEXANDER: Well, here again, I will go back to what I was saying initially, and someone who's not an attorney, but a form of lawman.

We got to go back and we got to look at a lot of police reform in this country. And we got to do it now, because something your other guest just stated, and it is so true, is this whole idea around transparency.

I have been saying this for years. What you do know, you share with the community as you go along in your investigation, as long as it does not jeopardize the integrity of the investigation.

But for an investigation to go 193-94 days, and people don't hear anything from the attorney general, people go to the mayor's office looking for answers, which the mayor don't have, because he's waiting to attempt to know what's going on as well. But he has to take the hits for it.

So, in this case, the A.G.'s office certainly was not as transparent as they could have been. And to drop this bombshell on people across this country and in that community today, it makes it very difficult.

So I understand why people feel the way that they do. And I think most of us that have any kind of conscience do. But, in the state of Kentucky in terms of what their findings were today, they certainly don't rise to the level of what people in that community and across this country would have expected.

And we just have to, going forward, find a way in which we're going to help reform these agencies across this country, all 18,000 of them, and so that we can do a better job at what we're doing in terms of being transparent, in terms of being responsible, in terms of being accountable.

But even more so than that right now, the legitimacy that our government is losing every day with everyday common people is very difficult for us to swallow. And that loss of trust, even at the federal level, at the state level in this case, and even at local levels make it very, very difficult for all of us.

So we're going to have to find our way back from this. But it's going to take real leadership in which people feel that they can wholly trust, because, right now, when it is up to their government to just be honest and forthright and open and accountable, it seems to be very hard to acquire.

COLEMAN: Kate, I want to jump in, if I can, very quickly on that last point and talk about the fact that this is also a conversation that requires us to reimagine (AUDIO GAP) entire criminal justice system, and looking at the relationship between prosecutors and law enforcement, because I have long said that law enforcement and D.A., in terms of police and district attorneys, they're in bed with one another in a way that is almost inseparable and deeply problematic for citizens.

I saw it when I was a prosecutor and you see it now. There's been a lot made about Daniel Cameron's promises to cater to the police community that he made during the -- during election season. And I am not trying to politicize this conversation.

However, what you have seen in this instance and in instances across the country are those promises coming to bear, where law enforcement has now looked at a candidate who promised to make them sort of above the law, if you will, and he has had to deliver.

And that is part of what we saw driving this decision today, I'm very much so convinced, regarding how Daniel Cameron's office came down with respect to this indictment.

BOLDUAN: Yes. All right, gentlemen, thank you. We're going to take a quick break. Obviously, we're going to stick

very close. We're keeping an eye on what's happening in Louisville and, honestly, what this now means for action across the country.

Our breaking news coverage continues, as demonstrators are on the streets of Louisville right now.

The grand jury decision of Breonna Taylor's death, what it really means, is now setting in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:24:05]

BOLDUAN: We're continuing to follow the breaking news out of Louisville, Kentucky, where people are gathering in the streets as we speak.

This, of course, is after a grand jury handed down its decision of one of three officers involved in the deadly police shooting of Breonna Taylor is indicted, former Detective Brett Hankison.

He was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment in the first- degree. But none of these charges and no one is charged with anything directly related to Breonna Taylor's death.

The three counts have to do with the endangerment of people in a neighboring apartment, as shots rang out.

CNN's Drew Griffin, he's joining me right now with more on this.

Drew, you talked to neighbors of Breonna Taylor, which now has come into very important focus, apparently, because that's the source of the charges that we're looking at. What did they tell you about that night?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, a couple of things.

One, of the three neighbors that we talked to, not one of them heard anybody shouting "police." One person admitted they heard shouting. The other two did not hear any knocking. And that includes the direct neighbor of Breonna Taylor, the person who, with her son and boyfriend who was there that night, are the subjects of these three indictments by the grand jury.

[15:25:22]

That apartment is directly next door. She did not hear anything about the police being knocked. We did not speak to the one witness that the attorney general spoke of.

But we know, during that night, that one neighbor did poke his head out, according to police, and was told to get back inside. I assume that was him. But remember, Kate, this was late at night. A lot of people were

sleeping. So the question remains, even if police did say their names or shout their names, if anybody understood exactly what was happening or who was at that door. Kenneth Walker says they had no idea it was the police.

BOLDUAN: And, Drew, what about the shots that rang out that they said endangered apartment -- endangered people in the apartment next door? What about that?

GRIFFIN: Yes, I mean, this shows you just how reckless this shooting was from Hankison and why he was fired.

Remember, he was fired long before today, when he became indicted. The neighbors who actually witnessed Hankison's shots, it almost sounds like a fit of rage. He actually came out to the street, according to witnesses, and fired into the sliding glass door and window of Breonna Taylor's apartment.

He didn't know what he was firing at. He couldn't see. The windows were closed, the drapes were closed. Those bullets traveled through Breonna Taylor's apartment and into the apartment in the back. They share a wall, like I assume just a wall board wall. Those were the bullets that whizzed by a sleeping 5-year-old, a woman and her friend who was spending the night and put them in danger, even though they had nothing at all to do with this.

So that is where the charges come from. Obviously, the police, the attorney general said there's no evidence that any of those bullets, the 10 bullets fired by Hankison, ended up inside Breonna Taylor's body, which is why I assume he personally wasn't charged with a homicide in this case.

But, Kate, really, the real crime here is still to be investigated. And that is just how the police got to Breonna Taylor's door that night. And, as we found, that was just tremendously sloppy police work.

BOLDUAN: And not part of the attorney general's investigation, he said very clearly, not part of what he said he was charged in looking into.

But it's an entirely important question, an entire -- this is a huge -- this is -- as you said, this is a real crime that has to be looked into, how they ended up there, when she is an innocent woman now dead.

Drew, thank you.

Do you have anything else, Drew?

GRIFFIN: I was just going to say, and remember, Kate, the three officers who were at that door that night, who were part of this tragedy, right, had nothing to do with the planning. They were merely being told, here's the warrant, go do this.

So all that detective work was done by somebody else in the department. And I think that's why, at this particular moment, you don't see any charges related to that. If there are charges, can you charge somebody with just being a terrible police detective?

I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. But it is very, very sloppy police work that led to this tragedy.

BOLDUAN: All right, Drew, thank you for that.

Here with me now is civil rights attorney Areva Martin.

Thanks for being here.

And just -- can I just get your reaction, Areva, to what we have learned in the past two hours?

AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Kate, I wish I could say I was surprised.

But, unfortunately, having been here so many times before, speaking with you, speaking to other anchors about these police shootings, I'm not at all surprised.

And one of the things the attorney general said that really incensed me, he tried to admonish what he called outsiders and influencers and celebrities who were trying to tell people in Kentucky what to do.

It is because of those outsiders, it's because of protesters that we're having any level of accountability in police a shooting cases like Breonna Taylor's. Without those protesters in those streets for days, for months and years, I doubt if we would even be at this point where we are today.

So I took great offense to that statement that he made. And it may be even a dig at Beyonce, because we know she wrote a letter to the attorney general asking him to file charges against the officers.

But, as a civil rights attorney, as a CNN legal analyst that's been here so many times before, I'm not at all surprised. However, I am deeply, deeply disappointed.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you, Areva, about one thing that Drew was just mentioning.

The attorney general had said that they were not charged with investigating, his office was not charged with investigating any of the police work, essentially, that led up to obtaining the warrant at all. He says that the FBI is doing that.

Why is that?